Cruel as a Queen Read online

  “L-let me out, please!” I cry, slamming against the gate again. Still it doesn’t budge. “P-please, I beg you. Please.”

  The woman’s eyes flick to the camera screens and then back to me. Her arm twitches.

  “Open the-the gate!” I beg her, tears flowing down my face. I’m so close, a press of a button away. If only she would press the button. “They’re going to-to kill me.” I sob against the gate, banging my fist against the metal until my hands start to bleed.

  Her hand twitches again, this time raising up enough to lay her hand against the release lock. Hope fills my body.

  “Please,” I sob. “P-please open . . . please open the gate.”

  Shuffling sounds behind me, and I start to yank on the handle in earnest, screaming at the top of my lungs, begging, pleading. Something buzzes, and the door releases so hard I stumble backwards. I recover quickly and throw myself through the door.

  “What the hell are you doing?” the guard shouts at the woman behind the desk. Her eyes are watery as she watches me. I don’t have time to thank her as I barrel through. I shriek as the guard tries to grab me, swinging the baton as hard as I can. I miss, but it gives me the opening I need. The doors are fifteen feet in front of me. All I have to do is get out those doors and run until I can’t run anymore, and I’ll be free.

  “Someone stop her!”

  I pump my arms harder, pushing myself as fast as I can go. My bare feet slide across the tile as I scramble for the door. Freedom, I can taste it.

  I slam through the double doors just as something pricks my neck. I lose my footing and slam to the ground, the concrete skinning any flesh exposed. My chin suffers the worst of the damage. I immediately try to push myself up, but I’ve lost feeling in my arms, my body growing as heavy as a sack of sand. I manage to roll myself over onto my back with a grunt, trying to get up.

  Get up! I scream in my mind. Get up and run!

  But I can’t. I can’t move. No, no, no, no, no. This can’t be it. I can’t be so close and fail.

  I stare at the man who steps forward out of the shadows, a syringe in his hand, the thing that had pricked me on the throat. Dark-blue eyes look me over, a grin on his face. When he kneels next to me and trails his fingers over my breast, I sob in my throat.

  “So close to freedom, Alice. How does it feel to be so close only to lose it?” A sinister grin crosses his face, and I know.

  Stevens had been playing with me all along.

  He let me get this far. He told the lady at the desk to open the gate. He wanted me to taste the freedom and then take it away. Black spots crawl across my vision.

  “Y-you’re a, a monster,” I whisper as the drug takes effect and I start to slip under.

  It doesn’t stop me from hearing his last words, or feeling his fingers push the hair from my face.

  “Oh, Alice. We both are.”

  The buzzing is what wakes me up. Something is buzzing, and then I feel a tug on my hair. I open my eyes to hazy white; wherever I am is new to me. I’ve never been in this room before. I jerk my wrists against the restraints, but it’s useless as usual. Tears prick my eyes. I look around frantically and find a man next to me. There are clippers in his hand, the source of the noise, and I jerk harder against my restraints.

  “P-please, no,” I sob, but he ignores me.

  I lean my head away from him when he draws close, and he tsks. “Hold still, or I’ll take off more than hair, girl.”

  More tears fall as he begins to shave my head, blonde locks falling to the floor slowly in graceful rivulets. My head grows cold as more and more of my hair is taken from me. I sob into my chest as the man takes away the last thing that belonged to me, as it coats the floor in a sheen of pale yellow.

  The man doesn’t waste time. He takes my dignity in five minutes, and then I’m being moved from the chair to a gurney and strapped down before being wheeled through the asylum, heading for my doom.

  I know how this will end. I know how this works.

  “Patient number zero-zero-four-two,” Stevens says, stepping up beside the gurney as we roll down the hallway. “Treatment one.”

  “Alice,” I sob. “My name, name is Alice.”

  Stevens looks down at me and grins. “Not anymore. You’re patient zero-zero-four-two.”

  He takes away everything that I am, my hair, my name, my freedom, until I’m a body trapped inside a hell, until I’m no longer a human at all.

  When they slide me to the table and begin to put me under, the sound of a drill somewhere far in the distance, tears drip down the sides of my face.

  Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?

  My thoughts race wildly as I try to fight the darkness closing in around me, but then the anesthesia kicks in, and they steal those, too.

  You promised. . . .

  Chapter 8

  Aged Nineteen

  “Patient number zero-zero-four-two. Caucasian female. Aged nineteen. Suffering from delusions, hallucinations, and bouts of hysteria. Dangerous. Biter.”

  I don’t even react to the statement. Sometimes, it’s a struggle to get words out, or to get my body to listen to my commands. I’m strapped to a table, my new normal. My skull holds a constant buzzing, as if I can still hear the drill, but there’s nothing there. They’ve only done one lobotomy before studying me. I’m remarkable, they say. I didn’t lose my functions, didn’t go comatose. What they don’t realize is the inner fight. For all appearances, I’ve become docile until I’m not.

  I’m labeled dangerous for a reason. I seem to have gained some sort of strength from the procedure, the drill tapping into something “miraculous”. And the treatment had cured my stutter. I think it’s from the trauma.

  Stevens talks in a monotone voice, pissed he’s here on a Saturday. I’d collapsed this morning when I tried to stand. I don’t know what happened, but the orderly had panicked and called the newest doctor, Dr. Morgan, who then called Dr. Stevens because he’s never been in contact with me before. I can’t help but be amused by the clear annoyance on Stevens’ face.

  “Hatter, White, Cheshire, Alex, Alex, Alex,” I mutter. I’ve been unable to stop the bouts of word vomit that slip from my mouth. In my mind, I don’t want to be saying them out loud–they only make my predicament worse–but still they slip free, taking the choice from me.

  “What is it that she’s saying?” the young Dr. Morgan asks, moving closer. I barely tense, ready for when he comes too close, ready to take advantage.

  Stevens sighs and grabs Dr. Morgan before he gets close enough. I clench my teeth at his interference. “Dr. Morgan, please refrain from getting too close.”

  “But she’s strapped down, Dr. Stevens. What harm can she do?”

  Stevens removes his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose, completely done with the younger doctor. His years here are wearing on him. I can’t wait to see him break.

  “There’s a reason there was an opening here, boy. She’s marked dangerous.”

  “Hatter, White, Cheshire, Alex, Alex, Alex.” My voice grows louder without my permission, almost turning into a growl. I yank at my restraints hard enough to bruise, adrenaline filling my body. Something tells me to fight, to make it more difficult for them.

  “Should we call someone?” Morgan’s voice is hesitant.

  “We need to administer a sedative. Go grab the nurse.”

  Morgan rushes from the room, leaving me alone with the monster. He sets the file down on the examination table and moves towards me. I yank harder.

  “Patient zero-zero-four-two. I am advising you to calm down, or else I will be forced to sedate you for your own safety.” If I was able to, I would have snorted. It isn’t for my safety at all. The closer he comes, the harder I pull at the restraints, until my body aches from the force.

  “Hatter! White! Cheshire! Alex!” I scream at the top of my lungs, my voice piercing. Stevens cringes but doesn’t step away.

  “Alice!” His voice saying my name only makes me mor
e violent. “Alice, you must calm down!”

  Then he reaches up and touches my leg. I immediately tense and stop moving, my glazed eyes staring at the man above me, his fingers trailing along my skin. Destroyer, Stevens is a destroyer.

  “That a girl,” he murmurs, his hand moving higher.

  A tear slips from the corner of my eye before I can stop it, and another follows immediately. I turn my head away, prepared to shut my mind off, when I see him.

  A choked gasp escapes, and hope fills my body. He came back. White came back for me.

  He stands in the corner, wearing his signature green waistcoat, those tall rabbit ears twitching on his head. I stare at him as he studies me, and I realize what he must see. I’m frail, far too thin. I no longer have hair, my head shaved, and there are thick scars there. I’ve never seen them, but I can feel the thick raised flesh where they had cut my scalp to perform the lobotomy. I must look like some sort of horrifying creature.

  “White,” I whisper, completely ignoring Stevens as he touches my body. “Help me, White.”

  The doctor follows my gaze, but he doesn’t see the man standing there. No one ever can unless White wants to be seen. He returns his attention to my body.

  “You can talk to your ghosts all you want,” Stevens whispers. “Focus on your white rabbit.”

  I sob, my fingers spreading, reaching towards White, towards my only chance at freedom from this place. White glares at the doctor touching me, and I can see his anger there. He’s going to help me; he must.

  “Please?” I cry. “Please, take me back!”

  White stares around the room, at the doctor, the sterile padded room, the sounds of other patients screaming and moaning out in the hallway. They’re never ending, and sometimes, my own screams join their own.

  “I can’t do that,” White whispers, and my heart stops. “I can’t take you back, Alice.”

  “Please?” My voice grows a little louder. “I’m begging you.”

  He blinks rapidly, but before he can speak again, Dr. Morgan steps back into the room with a nurse carrying a syringe. Neither of them comments as Stevens jerks his hand from beneath my gown. Morgan clears his throat and takes up position, the nurse getting the sedative ready.

  “White!” I scream, hysterical. No! He’s here to save me. He has to be. “Help me! You promised! You promised I was a part of Wonderland!”

  “I was wrong. You must not return, Alice.”

  The doctors move around me while I begin to thrash against my restraints as hard as I can.

  “You promised! You promised! You promised!” I let out an ear-piercing shriek, and everyone covers their ears.

  “I’m so sorry,” White chokes before turning towards the door.

  No! No! White was supposed to save me, to take me back to Wonderland. He isn’t supposed to leave me here to die.

  “Hatter! White! Cheshire! Alex! Alex! Alex! You promised!” My screams only grow louder as Stevens prepares to sedate me. In my hysteria, I jerk hard enough at the restraints for one of them to pop free. The leather strap flings away, and my first instinct is to wrap my fingers around Dr. Stevens’ throat. I squeeze hard, my fingernails sharper than I remember. “Off with their heads!” I scream. “Off with their heads! Off with their heads!”

  Morgan and the nurse try to pull my arm away, screaming for help from the orderlies, shouting a code red for everyone to hear. Another strap breaks, and I jerk, wrapping a second hand around Stevens’ throat. His face turns red quickly, and then morphs to purple, as I choke off his air supply.

  “Stop her! Someone get the sedative!”

  Stevens had dropped it with my attack, and it had been kicked around in the fight, no doubt. Morgan drops to his knees and scrambles for the syringe.

  Stevens claws at my hands, cutting deep grooves into my flesh with his nails. Blood begins to drop from the wounds, but I don’t feel a thing. My eyes are locked on White as he stands at the doorway, his sad eyes watching the scene.

  “You promised!” I snarl at him. “You promised!”

  The nurse jabs a needle into my arm and squeezes the plunger own, filling me with the sedative. Stevens is no longer fighting, his body limp in my hands. I bare my teeth at the man with rabbit ears on his head, at my friend and my betrayer.

  “Get the doctor away from her!” one of the orderlies shouts.

  I feel the moment the drugs enter my system, my fingers loosening, losing my strength. Stevens slides to the floor with a thump.

  “You promised,” I groan as I’m pushed back down. “You said I would always be a part of Wonderland.”

  White’s ears droop. Someone tries to resuscitate the doctor on the floor, but I can hear the panic. He’s dead. At least there’s some relief in that.

  “I’m sorry, Alice,” White whispers. “But you are not a part of Wonderland, and I cannot help you.”

  My eyelids begin to flutter as I give into the powerful drugs running through my bloodstream. I fight to remain awake, but the feeling of floating takes over.

  “Then off with your heads.” I force the words out, slurred and barely discernible.

  “I’m sorry,” White repeats one more time, before turning and leaving the room, leaving me behind in this hell, my last source of hope. My lips move, tracing the words I try so hard to keep in, try so hard to forget.

  But memories are odd things. We never forget the ones we want to.

  “Hatter . . . White . . . Cheshire . . . Alex . . . Alex . . . Al. . . .”

  Chapter 9

  Aged Twenty-One

  I'm trapped in the cage of my own body, a prisoner in my own brain, my limbs no longer my own. After Stevens's death, I was cleared for more lobotomies.

  "She's insane", they said. "It's the only way to help her."

  I’ve been subjected to two more treatments since then, and each time, it takes a little more from me. But I won't die. God help me, they won't kill me.

  There's a rage inside of me that I can't control, the likes that I've never felt before. I don't know how to control it, and I'm not even sure I want to. My records hold a list of all the orderlies and doctors I've ever harmed, including ones that I've killed. The list keeps growing longer, and still they don't put me out of my misery. It's like they get a sick satisfaction from seeing me turn into a rabid animal. I don't understand why they keep me, why they don't just make me disappear in the night.

  I've lost most of my ability to talk clearly. I don't stutter; I hardly speak at all. This world has become cloaked in rose-colored lenses, everything both fuzzy and clear at the same time. I don't talk to the doctors anymore, and they seem very pleased by that fact. Every morning, I scream inside my head, begging for someone to wake me up, to take me away from this place, to correct the mistake. There must have been a mistake! There has to have been! White will come back for me. His words were just that: words. Hatter won't let him leave me here. Alex won't. I'm a part of their world.

  "Alice, I want you to try to speak today. Does that sound like something you want to do?" The newest doctor is a woman. Any hope that she was better than all the men dashed out the door the moment she looked at me and asked, "what color is her brain tissue?" She's worse than any man, worse than any monster. The only consolation is that she never touches me in the way the other doctors would.

  I don't answer her. I rarely do. I no longer get beaten. There's no point really. I can hardly move on my own when I'm not fueled by rage. The only time I can actually cause any damage is when my anger gets the better of me. Some sort of fancy brain function, the doctor had said. The adrenaline forces my brain to function for a short period of time, even though they drilled into my soft tissue and took from me.

  I stopped crying about my life years ago. I don't even know what a life outside of these walls is like. My last memories are as a child, prancing through a make-believe world that somehow came to life. I focus on those memories when I can't take the reality.

  "Alice, come on. You're going to miss it!"
Alex shouts excitedly at me. I giggle and follow him through the forest, smearing dirt across my blue dress. Hatter had told me to stay close, but Alex was never one to follow rules. Neither am I.

  "Where are we going?" I ask, dodging hissing flowers and angry tree roots. They don't seem to like me after I kicked one of them. Now, I'm their enemy more than anything. They hate me. But it's okay. I hate them, too.

  "It's a surprise!" When we finally break through the tree line, I gasp. In front of us is a large waterfall, the water sparkling in the phosphorescent glow of the plant life.

  "It's beautiful," I whisper.

  "You haven't even seen anything yet," Alex grins, before he starts climbing the rocks at the side of the waterfall.

  I follow him immediately, gripping the slick rock tightly. My foot slips once, but I manage to keep my footing, and we scale the small cliff together. At the top, we stare over the waterfall for a moment, watching as the sparkling water splashes into the pool below. Alex offers me his hand, and I slip mine inside his without hesitation. If there's anyone I trust in this mad world, it's the boy next to me.

  "Are you ready?" he asks, a sly grin on his face.

  “For what?" Alex has always been odd for a prince, nothing like I expected, but that's exactly what I like about him. He's unusual, just like I am.

  He doesn't answer. He jumps from the cliff, our linked hands forcing me off behind him. I scream as we fall down, down, down towards the dark water. I hold my breath just as we hit the warmth, crash beneath the surface, and sink. Alex's hand is ripped from mine, and I kick for the surface frantically. When I break the water, I look around in a panic before Alex pops up beside me, laughing. His delight is so infectious, I can't help but begin to laugh, too.